Empowering Lives and Livelihoods – Renewables for Climate Action

About the Initiative

The “Empowering Lives and Livelihoods – Renewables for Climate Action” is a COP28 Initiative, launched by IRENA and the Government of United Arab Emirates, brings together governments, development partners, philanthropies, and the private sector to support catalytic actions and foster result-oriented partnerships for a systematic transformation of the agri-food and health sectors using renewable energy. The overall development objective of the initiative is to stimulate global collaborative action for increased investments for the deployment of sustainable, efficient, and affordable renewable energy solutions for energizing the agri-food chains and health sector, enhancing the lives and livelihoods of especially vulnerable communities. Recognizing the crucial role of women in these value chains, the Initiative puts women at the forefront of actions to inspire progressive changes and ensure greater gender and social equity.

The broader goals of the Initiative are to:

  • Improve well-being and livelihoods through decentralised renewables
  • Catalyse systematic energy transformation in agri-food, health, and clean cooking sectors
  • Improve resilience and productivity in agri-food and health
  • Reinforce climate adaptation, with mitigation co-benefits

The Empowering Lives and Livelihoods (L&L) Initiative contributes directly to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its commitment to reaching mostly under-served communities. Specifically, it supports the efforts to achieve SDG2 (food security), SDG3 (good health and well-being), SDG 5 (gender Equality), SDG7 (access to clean energy), SDG13 (climate action) and SDG17 (support partnerships). By providing access to energy, improving agricultural productivity, improving health care services, and access to clean cooking solutions, the initiative also helps advance SDG8 (sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth).

Focus Areas

  • Health sector

    Globally, an estimated 912 million people in low- and lower-middle-income countries are served by health-care facilities without reliable electricity access or with no electricity access at all. Increasing electricity access for health-care facilities has a multiplier effects: improves service availability and readiness, including inpatient, outpatient, child vaccination, maternal, and laboratory services, as well as health-care worker availability, motivation, recruitment, and retention.

  • Agri-food value chain

    Over 2.5 billion people worldwide rely on agriculture for their livelihoods making energy and agriculture key drivers for development. Agri-food systems account for about 30 percent of global energy consumption, most of it in post-harvest stages and in the form of fossil-based fuels. About 30% of that energy is wasted through food losses at one point or another in the value chain. Renewable energy can play a crucial role in meeting the energy needs of agri-food systems.

  • Clean cooking

    An estimated 2.3 billion people, mostly located in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, still lack access to clean cooking. The reliance on traditional biomass fuels (firewood and charcoal) is still prevalent in these regions leading to indoor air pollution and adverse health effects. Renewables-based clean cooking offer viable solutions to achieve a low-carbon energy transition economy, improved health and well-being, enhanced livelihood opportunities and mitigated climate change.

Activities

To achieve its development objectives, the L&L Initiative comprises three (3) main streams of activities:

Assist countries to conduct rapid market assessments and develop country investment programmes for the integration of decentralized renewable energy solutions in the health sector and agriculture values chains.

In collaboration with technical and financial partners, facilitate the design and roll-out of developed country investment programmes with tailored technical and finance solutions to enable the transformation of agri-food chains and healthcare services in beneficiary countries.

Build the technical, financial, institutional capacity of national stakeholders and foster knowledge sharing between governments, private sector, financial institutions, non-governmental organisations, donors, bilateral and development partners etc., to support replication of renewables-based energy access (including clean cooking) interventions.

Countries Supported under the Initiative

IRENA currently supports several countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, to conduct sectoral assessments and programme development for integration of decentralized renewables in agri-food chains and healthcare facilities in these countries.

IRENA L&L Country Portfolio (as of June 2024)

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